cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26891333
“Novocaine” is off to a good start at the box office with an estimated $8.5 million opening weekend, but the marketplace is in a terrible slump.
8.5 million is 2m more than the budget for the best picture winner this year. Why are high budgets not being critiqued? Not every movie needs to break a billion, and frankly they shouldn’t all break a billion.
Hight ticket prices, high snack prices, no pause button, sticky floors, other audience members. Hmmm. Wonder why things are bad for theaters?
Additionally, the last movie I went to actually started a full 27 minutes after the listed time, due to all the ads and trailers.
I’ve been trying to remember the last movie I went to see in a theater and all I can come up with is LOTR: Return of the King, lol!
my local theatre has fucking horrible speaker buzz problems in most of their screens.
One of the screens has a very visible blemish too
Very little investment has gone into that place for years
No volume control. No sound channel EQ. No subtitle option compared to home DVD or some streaming.
As a hearing aid wearer the turned-up-to-eleven sound level combined with unequal balance between voice and music/effects is borderline unbearable.
Max bass, max reverb, max audio compression, plus muttering and whispering by so many actors being recorded at low levels, combine to make cinema visits something to be endured.
Movie theaters have a subtitle option; you just have to mention that you’re hearing impaired when you buy your tickets, and they’ll give you special glasses that allow you to see the subtitles (no joke).
Ya know , it’s been so long since I went that I totally forgot about that! Definitely agree.
Me too…
don’t forget eggs
What theaters are you going to that serve eggs?
kegs and eggs
Between this and mickey 17 flopping, there really has to be a wake-up call for cinemas that people don’t want to go. No point in paying an expensive ticket and outrageously priced popcorn if your failed movie will end up on streaming 4 weeks later.
Not sure if I’d call Novocaine a flop yet considering it had a relatively modest budget of $18m. It might make enough to break even or profit still. The bigger indictment is Black Bag with a budget of $50m and opening lower than Novocaine.
I think instead we’re seeing more evidence that the mid budget movie doesn’t have a place in theaters anymore and the only movies worth putting in theaters are tentpole blockbusters or lower budget movies that don’t have to make a ton to break even.
Mid budget hasn’t had a place in cinemas since DVDs went out of style. I think that was in the early 2010s.
Hollywood has made the mistake in believing COVID was some kind of reset button on cinemas, when in fact COVID taught people watching movies at home was a better experience for anything except IMAX/VFX blockbusters.
Shame for Mickey 17, it’s pretty and original.
No, what I think cinemas will get from this is that people are not interested in original films anymore (I am unsure if both movies are… I am leaning towards that they are) and then keep selling us the same movies over and over again.
I think Novocaine is original. Mickey 17 is an adaptation of the novel Mickey7
I assume OP is using “original” loosely to refer to non-Disney/Marvel IP.
Novocaine is a 2001 American black comedy thriller film written and directed by David Atkins and starring Steve Martin, Helena Bonham Carter, Laura Dern, Lynne Thigpen and Elias Koteas. Wikipedia
I was burned too recently by the boring Love Hurts to try another action comedy so soon.
